MOSUL/WASHINGTON, June 16, (Agencies): The United States said it could launch air strikes and act jointly with its arch-enemy Iran to support the Iraqi government, after a rampage by Sunni Islamist insurgents across Iraq that has brought accusations of war crimes. Militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant have routed Baghdad’s army and seized the north of the country in the past week, threatening to dismember Iraq and unleash all-out sectarian warfare with no regard for national borders. The fighters have been joined by other armed Sunni groups who oppose what they say is oppression by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a Shiite.

The United Nations human rights chief said forces allied with ISIL had almost certainly committed war crimes by executing hundreds of non-combatant men in Iraq over the past five days Joint action between the United States and regional Shiite power Iran to help prop up their mutual ally in Baghdad would be unprecedented since Iran’s 1979 revolution, demonstrating the urgency of the alarm raised by the lightning insurgent advance.

US Secretary of State John Kerry called the advance an “existential threat” for Iraq. Asked if the United States could cooperate with Tehran against the insurgents, Kerry told Yahoo News: “I wouldn’t rule out anything that would be constructive.” As for air strikes: “They’re not the whole answer, but they may well be one of the options that are important,” he said. “When you have people murdering, assassinating in these mass massacres, you have to stop that. And you do what you need to do if you need to try to stop it from the air or otherwise.” The Pentagon said that while there might be discussions with Iran, there were no plans to coordinate military action with it. Britain, Washington’s ally in the 2003 war that deposed Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein, said it had reached out to Iran in recent days. A US official said meetings with Iran could come this week on the sidelines of international nuclear talks.

Iran has longstanding ties to Maliki and other Shi’ite politicians who came to power in US-backed elections. ISIL seeks a caliphate ruled on mediaeval Sunni Muslim precepts in Iraq and Syria, fighting against both Iraq’s Maliki and Syria’s Bashar al- Assad, another ally of Iran. It considers Shi’ites heretics deserving death and has boasted of massacring hundreds of Iraqi troops who surrendered to it last week. Its uprising has been joined by tribal groups and figures from Saddam’s era who believe Maliki is hostile to Sunnis. ISIL fighters and allied Sunni tribesmen overran yet another town on Monday, Saqlawiya west of Baghdad, where they captured six Humvees and two tanks. Eyewitnesses said Iraqi army helicopters were hovering over the town to try to provide cover for retreating troops.

Evacuate “It was a crazy battle and dozens were killed from both sides. It is impossible to reach the town and evacuate the bodies,” said a medical source at a hospital in the nearby city of Falluja, largely held by insurgents since early this year. Overnight, the fighters captured the city of Tal Afar in northwestern Iraq, solidifying their grip on the north. “Severe fighting took place, and many people were killed. Shi’ite families have fled to the west and Sunni families have fled to the east,” said a city official. Tal Afar is a short drive west from Mosul, the north’s main city, which ISIL seized last week at the start of its push. Fighters then swept through towns and cities on the Tigris before halting about an hour’s drive north of Baghdad. Iraq’s army is holding out in Samarra, a Tigris city that is home to a Shi’ite shrine. Aconvoy travelling to reinforce the troops there was ambushed late on Sunday by Sunni fighters near the town of Ishaqi. Fighting continued through Monday morning. An Iraqi army spokesman in Baghdad reported fighting also to the south of Baghdad. He said 56 of the enemy had been Park View has an Islamist curriculum and provides lessons in jihad, advertised on the school’s website. Its head of extracurricular activities, Abid Ali, rails against the western world on Facebook, writing: “All that occupies my mind is the reality, the hypocrisy, the mentality of the western world” while advocating “a Muslim Khalifa” movement...fighting to save our religion from the zalims (tyrants). A senior teacher, Inam Ul Haq, has celebrated the early release of “the Terrorists’ Bookseller” Abu Bakr, on social media. There are currently five government investigations ongoing into what’s being described as the ‘Trojan Horse Plot’ but, as yet, no action has been taken and the brainwashers still retain their jobs. Last week, the results of inspections of Birmingham schools were published galvanizing Minister for Education Michael Gove to issue a statement requiring Britain’s independent schools, academies and free schools to “respect British values” while announcing that consultations are ongoing to enforce new rules designed to ensure “all schools actively promote British values.” This may be too little too late. Britain’s extremists and wannabe jihadists are naturally up in arms screaming racism and bigotry.

Neglect
Successive British governments have turned a blind eye to religious fanatics for too long - and one day, their neglect may bite them in the face, just as it did on July 7, 2005 when home-grown terrorists launched suicide attacks on the London transport system, killing 52 and injuring 770. You would think they’d learned an indelible lesson from that terrible tragedy, but, just the opposite. In recent years, the UK has become a magnet for members of the Muslim Brotherhood, branded “terrorist” by Egypt and Saudi Arabia, who created a global nerve-centre above an abandoned kebab shop in north London that is now being relocated to Austria following a government investigation into their activities, which was aided by MI6, MI5 and supervised by Whitehall officials. It goes without saying that the Brotherhood’s well-oiled propaganda machine has gone into over-drive issuing heavily couched threats partnered with avowals of innocence.

British soil is also being used by hard line extremists as the place to launch satellite TV channels airing inflammatory sermons from preachers; one such as the Birmingham-based, misnamed Peace TV, owned by Dr Zakir Naik, who is quoted as saying “Every Muslim should be a terrorist”. Takbeer TV, broadcasting from Nottingham, has been agitating against the Ahmadi sect describing adherents as suffering from a disease or having monstrous intentions. There are 14 of these spewing hate, death to apostates and calls for jihad, yet, the television watchdog, OFCOM, does little more than issue nominal fines when breaches of its code comes to its attention.

Come on Britain! Do something! Those pea-brained propagandists do not represent mainstream Muslims and are not fit to be in the same room as our Holy Book. Indeed, they should be rounded up and tried for desecrating our faith. Don’t listen to the ignorant rants of so-called human rights activists, more focused on preserving the rights of crazies than decent, devout people who work through their religion to better societies and further inter-faith understanding. You’ve opened your doors with good intentions but now when you’re being turned into a favoured extremist dustbin, it’s time self-preservation kicks-in. It’s no accident of fate that over 500 Britons are known to be fighting alongside ISIL in Syria and Iraq, fuelled by the promise of an Islamist caliphate. That won’t happen, because the west won’t permit it, and then they’ll be back battle-hardened and consumed with anger. Be warned, that unless this type of indoctrination is nipped firmly in the bud in schools, mosques and on TV, the jihadists could decide to make the UK their next playground spawning a rise of fascism and neo-Nazism in response.